


The Broadcast

by elistaire



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Car Accidents, Gen, Humor, Musical References, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 18:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7449985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elistaire/pseuds/elistaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duncan's in danger and it is his Thunderbird to the rescue!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Broadcast

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2002.

_"Cause I drink alone. Yeah, with nobody else. Yeah, you know when I drink alone. I prefer to be by myself."_ (1), the radio extorted the virtues of solitary imbibing amid a blare of guitar, bass, and drums.

Methos cut the ignition and the radio finally died out. He slid out and closed the door to MacLeod's Thunderbird. He grimaced. MacLeod would probably kill him, even though it hadn't been his fault at all. The car had been in park. The deathtrap had shifted itself into drive without warning and lurched forward, sideswiping a telephone pole, which hadn't seemed to notice in the least. The Thunderbird had fared less well and was now sporting one crumpled driver's side front panel and a frazzled electrical system. Methos knelt down and surveyed the damage, running his fingers over the twisted metal. Yeah, it was going to cost a few pennies to get out the dents and repaint. It didn’t even bear thinking about how much it might cost to fix the electronics.

He straightened up and started over to the door of Joe's Bar. First, explanations would have to be made to MacLeod about why he’d kept the car for a full day. MacLeod had only loaned it to him for the evening. But he’d needed the transportation and there hadn’t been time to secure MacLeod’s blessings to keep it for an extended period of time. It had been rude behavior but nothing that MacLeod didn’t expect of him.

Second, he’d have to tell him about the damage. And then quickly take cover.

Oh, tonight wasn't turning out well at all.

As he entered the bar, though, he realized that there had been a distinct absence of Presence. "Maybe I will be drinking alone," he muttered to himself. Even though he was relieved to put off the conversation about the accident, he was disappointed. Usually MacLeod met him here in the evenings before they went home. Well, before they returned to the loft, he amended. And where he slept on the couch. MacLeod must already be in a snit about the missing car. Methos sighed and sauntered over to the bar.

Joe was staring at him, hands holding a glass and towel in front of him, frozen in the act of wiping.

"Joe? Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost." Methos frowned. 

"You son of a bitch," Joe said, stunned. After a pause he continued. "You're alive."

"Last I checked," Methos replied. "You thought I was dead?"

Joe finally put the glass and towel down. He glanced around to make sure no one was too close. "Well, yeah. After last night. And then I got a report of a really big Quickening. Unknown engagement. Mac and I both thought you were gone."

"Well, I'm obviously still here."

"Obviously," Joe said dryly. "Then what was it with that big bruiser last night?"

"That was all a misunderstanding. I told you that at the time."

"It didn't look that way from here. He seemed pretty pissed off." 

Methos shrugged. "So, after Dakarai came in here and demanded we go off some place private, you thought he had challenged me. Not a shocking assumption, I'll admit. But we didn't fight. We talked and went our separate ways. Old business. I suppose he could have run into someone after we'd parted."

"Mac was worried. You didn't show up at the loft all night. Where the Hell have you been?" 

"I needed to think. I was doing a lot of walking." Methos dismissed the missing time with a wave of his hand. Joe didn't need to know the full story. He settled himself on a barstool and looked plaintively at the tap. "By the way, where is MacLeod?" Methos kept his voice carefully neutral. He was going to have a lot of explaining to do when he did finally catch up with MacLeod. He ran a hand through his hair and wished he had never borrowed the damn car. 

Joe ignored the look aimed at the tap. Then he stiffened, remembering. "Oh, Hell. MacLeod went after the guy."

Methos' attention had drifted over to the band setting up on stage. "What guy?" he asked absently.

"The guy. Dakarai. From last night." 

Methos turned an ashen face back to Joe. "What! He did what? Joe, where? I've got to stop it."

Joe motioned to his other bartender to take over, grabbed his cell phone, and came around the end of the bar. "I'm coming with you. Let's roll."

Methos started to protest, but Joe held up a hand. "You want my information, you bring me along."

Methos nodded and they hurried outside to where the Thunderbird was parked.

Joe raised an eyebrow as he surveyed the damage. "Have a little accident?"

"Wasn't my fault," Methos grumbled defensively. "Damned possessed thing shifted out of park on its own." They settled into their seats. "Besides. That isn't the worst of it."

"There's more?" Joe asked.

"Yeah." Methos grinned wickedly and started the car.

The radio blared into life. " _I wanna know what the rent's like in heaven, I wanna know where the river goes..._ "(2).

"What the hell is that?" Joe grimaced and covered his ears.

Methos turned the car off. "Stone Temple Pilots. _‘Where the River Goes’._ " Methos put a hand up before Joe could give him an earful. "It happened in the accident. Radio won't turn off. I even tried to take out the fuses and disconnect the bloody wiring. The station is stuck. The volume is stuck." He stopped grinning, remembering why he was out here to begin with. "MacLeod?"

Joe nodded and dialed a number on his cell phone. Two minutes later, he had the information. "Docks district."

Methos nodded and turned the car back on. The radio hummed to life. " _... I cover the waterfront, I'm watching the sea, for the one I love, must soon come back to me..._ " (3).

Joe glanced at the radio. "That's nice. Sounds like Billie Holiday."

Methos just drove. It would take five minutes to get to the waterfront district. 

"Adam, he'll be fine. I'm sure as soon as he talks to Dakarai he'll realize that you're alive and as annoying as ever."

"I hope you're right, Joe," Methos replied, eyes to the road. 

They both lapsed into silence and began to consider their own dark thoughts. The radio shifted songs " _...gonna see the River Man, gonna tell him all I can..._ "(4).

Five long minutes later, Methos pulled to a stop. The radio had switched over to a ballad. " _Deep River. My home is over Jordan. Deep River. Lord, I've want to cross over..._ "(5). His eyes swept the dock area. There were at least four large warehouses squatting against the shoreline. He glanced at Joe. "Which one?"

Joe pounded numbers into his cell phone again.

Methos turned the Thunderbird off and the radio gave a last dying gurgle. " _...asleep in blue buildings, beside the green apple sea..._ "(6). He looked up. Two grey buildings. One yellow building. And one blue building.

"Damn!" Joe was spitting into the phone. "What do you mean you lost contact after they reached destination?!"

Methos made a decision. He left the car and started running across the parking lot. The blue building was the closest. Just outside the door, he felt the beginning tingle of Presence. Bingo. He flung the door open, shouting. "Stop! Don't do it!" He came to an abrupt halt.

Thirty girls in pink sweatshirts, fuzzy pink slippers, and their hair done up in pigtails stood in a circle. They were all holding pink stuffed elephants. Thirty pairs of eyes simultaneously swiveled to stare at him. 

"Um," he said. "I'm looking for someone." He glanced around. He had felt a Presence, so where was MacLeod? Or another Immortal? His eyes narrowed and he continued to scan the area.

"Hey? I know you? You were my Linguistics Professor?" One of the pink-bedecked girls addressed him, up-speaking the end of every sentence, as if unable to make any statements. The girls started to murmur amongst themselves.

Methos turned and looked at the girl. "I am?" Right. He was a professor up at Seacouver University. "I am," he repeated, sounding slightly more sure of himself.

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, or anything," the girl went on," but we're pledging here? Could you, you know, go away?"

"Um, sure. I'm leaving now. But before I go, you haven't seen anyone else around, have you?"

"Oh, sure." The girl rolled her eyes. "Two other guys came by about ten seconds before you did. They were all super serious and stuff?" 

"Oh, yeah," chimed in another girl a few feet away, "One was a total hottie. And you could tell they hated each other. Totally shooting eye-daggers."

"Where did they go?" Methos asked hopefully. No one was mentioning any fights to the death with bladed weapons, decapitation, or large unexplained electrical storms. That was a good sign.

"Outside," the first girl said pointedly. "'Cause, you know? We're pledging?"

"Right. Sorry." Methos turned around and went out the door.

"How rude!" One of the girls was whispering to the others as they waited for him to leave. "Like, I thought this was an abandoned warehouse? What is up with that?"

Methos scanned the parking lot as he headed back to the car. He'd felt a Presence just before going into the warehouse, which meant that someone else was around. He would've bet that it was MacLeod and Dakarai heading off to find somewhere less populated to conduct their business. 

Joe was waiting anxiously when he returned. "Well? What happened?"

"They were here, but they left. The warehouse was occupied."

"Damn." Joe punched numbers into his cell phone again. It took him about a minute to learn that no one had picked up on MacLeod leaving the area. "Now what?"

"I don't know. The rest of this area is pretty populated. And the night is still early. They'd have to go somewhere else. I just don't know where." Methos gripped the steering wheel for a moment, frustrated. No great insight came to him about the combatants’ possible whereabouts, so he turned the car on, just to feel like he was doing something. The radio immediately started belting out music. " _...And a west end town in a dead end world, the east end boys and west end girls, west end girls, west end girls..._ "(7).

"What is this crap?" Joe started pounding out his own frustration by twisting knobs and dials, hitting buttons. The radio paid no mind and continued its relentless bleating.

Methos' eyes narrowed. It had to be the single dumbest thing he'd ever conceived. "Wait, Joe," he said. It took less than a minute for the song to change. " _...Go West, life is peaceful, Go West, in the open air, Go West, where the skies are blue, Go West...._ "(8).

"It sounds like the same crap as that first song," Joe grumbled.

Methos abruptly shoved the car into gear, and they tore out of the parking lot.

"Adam! Adam!" Joe shouted, hands clutching at the seat for balance. "What the Hell are you doing? Slow down! You might survive a crash, but I won't!"

"He's on the West End of the city," Methos said grimly, taking a corner tight enough to squeal the tires.

"And how the Hell do you know that!" Joe shouted over the radio. 

"Ever since the crash, it's been doing it. On my way to the bar tonight, nothing but drinking songs. On the way here to the warehouse, every song had something to do with the water." 

"Oh, shit!" Joe complained. "That's just stupid. It's a radio!" He listened to the radio for a moment. A new song had taken over from the old. "This song has nothing to do with going west," he declared.

"The name of the band is Stabbing Westward." (9)

"Oh, Hell!" Joe rubbed at his face.

Methos took another corner. They were practically to the West End. He slowed to a stop and threw the car in park. The song on the radio was coming to an end. He glared at the electronic device, as if by sheer concentration alone he could make it give up more secrets. 

Suddenly the Thunderbird lurched forward. Methos' hands flew back to the wheel and he stomped on the brake.

"What the Hell was that!" Joe shouted.

"I told you. It likes to throw itself out of park and into gear every so often," Methos replied, eyes glued back to the radio.

The old song finally faded away and a new song's melody came in to take its place. " _Take me down to St. James Infirmary, to see my baby there, she's stretched out on a long white table..._ "(10).

"Hunh. I know this one," Joe said. " _St. James Infirmary._ "

"The hospital," Methos declared and hit the gas pedal.

"No, no!" Joe rebuked him. "The morgue. She's dead. The girl in the song is dead!"

Methos nodded grimly and turned the wheel. The medical examiner's office was only a block away. A perfect little place for a fight. He put the car into park and slammed on the emergency brake. 

"Stay here," he commanded, eyes scanning the area. Everything seemed quiet.

"Wait," Joe said. "The song's changing."

They both paused. " _...Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner, sometimes I feel like my only friend is the city I live in the city of angels..._ " (11)

"What the Hell does that mean?" Joe smacked his hand on the dashboard. "We have to drive to Los Angeles now?"

Methos just put the car into gear and sped through the parking area to the back of the Medical Examiner's medical examiner’s office. Hurry, hurry. He slammed the car in park but left it running. He flung the door open, eyes intent on the darkened bridge. It was old, made of concrete that had flaked away to reveal its rebar skeleton. And it was a good place to have a private confrontation.

As he neared the bridge, the sound of ringing metal reached his ears, overlaying the ending strains of the song still coming from the car. 

Suddenly MacLeod and Dakarai stepped into view, swords whirling and glinting in the poor street light. Another couple of steps and they were directly in front of him.

"Mac! MacLeod!" He was screaming. "Dakarai! Stop! Stop!" He was going to have to break the no interference rule, yet again. He gripped the pistol in his pocket, wondering if he could take them both down fast enough to avoid either one taking the other's head. Neither of them seemed to hear him or to even note his Presence, so intent they needed to be on the other.

Damn! Dakarai was almost as skilled as MacLeod. Someone was going to end up without their head soon, if he couldn't get through to them.

The fight moved towards the Thunderbird. Methos followed them, still shouting, hoping to break through their battle concentration. He held his gun out, waiting for an opportune moment. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that the song on the radio had changed. Awful humming filtered out, turning to an inflectionless droning of words. " _Once there was this kid who got into an accident and couldn't come to school..._ " He knew that song. Actually, he hated that song. The group had some absurd name. 

Memory sparked a moment later. He’d forgotten to put the parking brake on. Methos turned towards the car just as it lurched forward. "Joe!" He warned, too late.

The Thunderbird slammed into the two combatants, limbs and swords flying akimbo, before finishing it’s jumpstart forward, bumping gently into a bridge support.

Methos ran to Joe. He leaned into the car, turning the ignition off and pulling the keys out. "Joe?"

Joe was sitting in his seat, head thrown back. He opened one eye. "Adam," he said, very calmly. "It slipped into gear again." Then he twisted around. "Mac! Well, don't just gape at me. I’m fine. Go get him!"

Methos backed out of the car and surveyed the scene in front of him. Two still figures on the ground, each bleeding out. He kicked Dakarai's sword a few meters away, into the weeds. Then he retrieved the katana and hunched down next to MacLeod. Absently, he reached out and pushed a stray lock of hair out of MacLeod's face.

A few minutes later, MacLeod took a hard, deep breath. He lurched upwards. His eyes flicked everywhere, finally settling on Methos.

"Methos?"

"Right here, Mac. Give it a minute to finish healing up."

MacLeod reached out a hand, grabbing at Methos' own. "You aren't dead." His voice was a mixture of relief and disbelief. “I thought….”

Methos rotated his free hand in front of him. "The reports of my demise, yadda yadda." He flicked a quick look to Dakarai. Still down for the count. Good. "Maybe the two of you can settle this quarrel without bloodshed?"

MacLeod nodded, collecting himself and his sword. He stood up, his free hand still clasped at Methos' wrist. They stared at each other for a moment, neither speaking. MacLeod released the wrist and gave a controlled nod. He went over to his opponent, waiting patiently for the man to breath again.

Methos returned to the Thunderbird, leaning down to catch Joe's attention, checking that the man hadn't been seriously hurt. He stayed outside, shoulders relaxed, but ready just in case.

A moment later Dakarai gasped to life, instinctively rolling over, hands reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. His eyes flicked about him, cataloging. They rested for a moment on Methos and then returned to MacLeod. 

MacLeod and Dakarai exchanged a few terse words. 

Dakarai gave the area a final scan and spotted his sword in the weeds. He retrieved it and then was gone, slipping into the darkness.

MacLeod watched his opponent vanish. Then he turned his attention to his two friends. 

He strode over to his car, his eyes raking along its surface. 

“Umm, I suppose now would not be a good time to apologize for keeping your car out past its bedtime?” Methos quipped.

“No,” MacLeod answered as he focused his attention on the damage to his car. Then he glanced at Joe. “I see you were along for the ride.”

Joe chuckled, “Wouldn’t have missed it.”

MacLeod turned away from his car and glared down at Methos, who sought refuge in the back seat. “But we are going to talk about this.” 

MacLeod slid into the driver’s seat, firmly closed his door, and placed his hands on the steering wheel. Methos started to speak, but MacLeod cut him off. “Don’t make me change my mind about being glad that you aren’t dead.” 

Only Joe saw the faint smile that accompanied the words.

Methos harrumphed, crossed his arms, and sunk back into the upholstery. “Next time I’ll leave you to your misguided retribution.”

“Next time you won’t have any transportation, so you won’t get into any trouble,” MacLeod countered. His hand reached for the ignition.

Both Joe and Methos shouted for him to stop, a moment too late.

“Wait, Mac! We need to warn you about the…” Joe began, hands coming to the sides of his head.

The Thunderbird purred to life. The radio sat there, inert.

“…radio.” Joe finished lamely.

“Radio, Joe?” MacLeod repeated. “It’s been completely broken for the past month. It won’t even pick up static. I have a new one on order.”

Joe looked at Methos, who just shrugged. 

“Right. How about we get out of here?” Joe requested.

MacLeod cast a quick glance in his rearview mirror, checking on his backseat passenger. “Home, then.”

And they drove home in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> (1) George Thorogood and the Destroyers, various albums, "I Drink Alone"  
> (2) Stone Temple Pilots, “Core”, "Where The River Goes"  
> (3) Performed by Billie Holiday, various albums, "I Cover the Waterfront", (written by Comden/Green/Styne)  
> (4) Nike Drake, "An Introduction to Nick Drake", "River Man"  
> (5) Performed by Paul Robeson, various albums, "Deep River", (traditional)  
> (6) Counting Crows, “August and Everything After”, "Perfect Blue Buildings"  
> (7) Pet Shop Boys, “Please”, "West End Girls"  
> (8) Pet Shop Boys, “Very, "Go West"  
> (9) Stabbing Westward, any song   
> (10) Cab Calloway, various albums, “St. James Infirmary”  
> (11) Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”, “Under The Bridge”  
> (12) Crash Test Dummies. "God Shuffled His Feet", Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm"


End file.
